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| London Rally and March For A New Vote. Not with original article * |
Roger Silverman
London
Member Labor Party
The Brexit endgame is playing out. Theresa May's position as
prime minister is under threat from the Brexiteers, who are alarmed at the
prospect of a capitulation to the EU. There is talk of a mutiny by some
Blairite Labour MPs to save her from a Tory revolt. But how many of these are
willing to commit harakiri on her behalf and face certain deselection?
As I have commented earlier, sometimes silence can be as
eloquent as the most strident noise. That’s what Sherlock Holmes had in mind
when he commented on “the strange behaviour of the dog in the night”.
Just after the Labour Party conference, a strange silence
suddenly afflicted the media. This followed three years of rabid howling
against Labour, more ferocious than at any time since the fake Zinoviev letter
scare in 1923. It was not as if the conference hadn’t offered the media ample
excuses for further displays of mock hysterical outrage: the waving of
Palestinian flags, the obvious ambiguity and equivocation about Brexit, the
threat to the guarantee of lifelong job security for Blairite MPs…. Suddenly
the unremitting chorus of raucous smearing and jeering was switched off; Corbyn
was no longer branded a pacifist and somehow simultaneously a terrorist
sympathiser, a Czech spy and also an anti-Semite. The dogs had fallen
mysteriously silent.
The fear that Britain is rushing headlong towards a
dangerous "no-deal" Brexit is causing panic within the ruling class.
It is putting at risk the last lingering relic of any global power or prestige.
Desperate times require desperate measures. One extreme option that must be
under consideration as a last resort is a temporary replacement of the demented
Tory lunatics by a Labour government. Let responsibility for the negotiations
rest in the safe hands of Sir Keir Starmer, they must be thinking; let Labour
bear the brunt of all the odium and xenophobic hysteria from the resurgent
ultra-right for "betraying the will of the people", etc.
And then? Why, then, when the time comes, they still have
the power to deploy all the classic dirty tricks to destabilise the Labour
government – a run on sterling, an investment strike, terrorist outrages from
all quarters, racism, rioting, assassinations, even a military mutiny… Now that
the threat of a purge of the Parliamentary Labour Party has been averted –
something which would have been inevitable if the will of the rank and file for
open selection of Labour candidates had prevailed – the ruling class are now
guaranteed the continued presence of a fifth column planted firmly within the
Parliamentary Labour Party, ever ready at the given signal to pull the plug on
Corby
This is certainly not their preferred option. The ruling
class has every reason to be nervous at the prospect of the massive
expectations that would be aroused by the election of a left Labour government
under Corbyn. If they can succeed in luring enough of the Blairites to defect
in advance of a general election, to tempt enough of them to defy the Labour
whip, prop up May against a hostile Tory rebellion and allow a partial
capitulation to the EU, then they will eagerly opt for that outcome; it would
be a far safer solution. But it is doubtful whether they could persuade enough
of them. There will be overwhelming pressure on these potential renegades from
the Labour ranks to avoid the odium of betrayal and the certainty of
reselection and political oblivion.
A brief and turbulent Labour government has to be one option
that they are keeping in reserve, to prick the bubble of the Corbyn surge.
There can be no other explanation for the strange reticence of the media in
suddenly switching off the previous slander campaign.
* "FFWP Admin added the picture to this commentary. A
picture is also necessary for other reasons when the piece is shared. It
is important to make this clear as it didn’t accompany the article and there
are positive and negative aspects to this event."
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